Everyone in Britain knows that The Sun is an atrocious newspaper. The office workers know it, the builders know it, the politicians know it and I certainly know it. In fact I know it more than most, because unlike the others, I actually read The Sun as oppose to casually flicking through it and then pasting pages two and three together with man mayonnaise. Although I read, rather than ogle, the nation’s favourite tabloid, that doesn’t mean I am any more enlightened than the masses, for there is no enlightenment to be found within its pages; this is a newspaper without the news. If you’re looking for some perky Essex paps to kick-start your day, or an astonishingly inept article to slate in your weblog, The Sun is perfect. Its thinly-disguised xenophobia (especially towards the French or anyone who has the audacity to have the same colour skin as a terrorist) is embarrassing. And its over-the-top patriotism is cringe-worthy. Today’s cover ‘story’ is, quite frankly, horrific. It makes me feel embarrassed to be British (or Scottish if it’s The Scottish Sun I’m reading). Is it any wonder that our country is the laughing-stock of Europe? One glance at the front page of Britain’s most infamous red-top and you could be mistaken for assuming we are a nation of retards.
‘OFF THEIR ROCKERS’ screams The Sun. ‘Hospital spends £70,000 on giant pebble. Insult to 7/7 victims treated on its wards.’ Stop a second. Go back and re-read that headline. Hospital spends £70,000 on giant pebble? Insult to 7/7 victims treated on its wards? Do I even need to write an explanation? Probably not, but I will because I’ve got a few things to get off my indignantly over laden chest. The scandalous story that The Sun would like to convey to us, its simple readers, is that a hospital where the London terror attack victims were treated has spent £70,000 on a decorative stone for their entrance. In fairness to The Sun, that does seem like an awful lot of money to spend on a fancy stone. But what the fuck has this got to do with terrorism? A hospital buying a rock is no more an insult to terrorism victims than the hospital buying new beds, or linen or x-ray equipment. If I was to go and piss on the graves of the 7/7 victims, that would be an insult. But rocks? Do you think a terror victim, lying in a hospital bed with 90% burns to his body, feels ‘insulted’ because of an expensive piece of stone? The Sun knows that terrorism sells. But rocks don’t. The trouble is, there aren’t any terrorism stories to publish today. So what do they do? They write a boring story about a rock. And then - now here’s the clever part - they tentatively link it to terrorism. The Sun’s investigative reporters reveal to us ‘Last night a rock, looking like a pebble, [as oppose to a pebble looking like a rock, of course] was blasted by patient groups and medical staff who believe the cash should have been spent on healing the sick. One doctor described it as an ‘insult’ to 7/7 victims who are still having after-care treatment.’ So are they trying to tell us that these people are in a bad way because of a shortage of hospital funds? Cos I could have sworn that it was a bunch of trigger-happy terrorists with backpacks that caused the damage. If the hospital were to dispense with all non-essential purchases altogether would that keep The Sun happy? Sorry patients, but we’re not allowed TVs in wards any more. No carpets either. No photographs or paintings. No kids’ toys in the sick children’s ward. Yes, we had been planning to put up some decorations but in the current political climate, we thought it would be an insult to the 7/7 victims. It’s quite fitting that The Sun refers to these people as 7/7 because that’s all they are to this paper - a number. A number that, when used correctly, will increase another much more important number - their circulation figure. I wonder, how much money did The Sun spend on their staff Xmas party? £70,000 you say? That’s an outrage. That money could have been used to pay for extra policemen in the hunt for Rory Blackhall’s killer. Yeah that’s right, I just made a tentative link between The Sun’s Xmas party and a murdered 11-year-old boy. I’ll put it on the front of The Trash Whore Diaries and call it news. The Sun says that the money used on buying the rock could have paid for, among other things, ‘14,000 doses of Viagara.’ OK, so they think it’s acceptable for a stadium full of octogenarians to get woodies but not for a decorative stone to be placed outside a hospital? Well I know what I’d rather look at. The Sun go on to tell us how its reporters bought ‘two similar-sized lumps of rock for under a grand.’ Does that mean if I painted a canvas that was ‘similar-sized’ to a Caravaggio it would be a masterpiece? Fuck off you shitty, ignorant tabloid. It’s a shame some of your reporters didn’t perish in the 7/7 attacks. There, I’ve said it. Now all you’ve got to do is print off a few snippets from this blog, add the words ‘scandal’ and ‘insult’ and you’ve got tomorrow’s front page news. Is it any wonder I don’t have enough time to update this weblog regularly? I’m too busy doing other people’s jobs for them.